


See You Soon

by papofglencoe



Category: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-11
Updated: 2015-11-11
Packaged: 2018-05-01 05:18:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5193683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/papofglencoe/pseuds/papofglencoe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the memories become too painful to bear, Katniss and Peeta decide to handle them the only way they can: by forgetting each other. </p><p>But is love more than just a memory?</p><p>A one shot based on The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.</p><p> </p><p>A/N: Canon-divergent. Contains direct and revised quotes from The Hunger Games books and movies.</p><p>Rated Explicit for obscene language, underage sex, masturbation, and references to torture and child abuse.</p><p>With many thanks to my betas/friends/cheerleaders/queens of my heart @dandelion-sunset @myusernamehere, and @joshs-left-earlobe for getting me through this story as the walls crumbled around me.</p>
            </blockquote>





	See You Soon

The iced decorations are always green now. It’s a compulsion: no matter how long I stare at the rows of amber glass jars, each holding their own food coloring, I always reach for the bottle holding the green coloring. I use it to make petals and branches and blades of grass in shades of juniper, basil, moss, and sage. The frosting curls in delicate patterns, intricately interwoven leaves and shapes that look like rustling pine needles, the bright lichen that clings to the wall of a cave, the fronds of a jungle palm.

It’s some of the best work I can remember doing.

I don’t get to make cakes that often anymore because what we really need is wholesome food, hearty breads made of grains and oats, food that sustains and fills us. But sometimes, I find, the only way to cheer people up is to hand them a pastry. I don’t know what it is, but when you sink your teeth into the sugary sweetness of a cake, all the things that make you ache seem a little less damaging somehow.

And there are so many things making us ache, so much that is damaged. It seems like the least I can do, baking the cakes as often as I can get my hands on the supplies.

Getting out of bed isn’t as easy as it used to be–not that it was ever particularly _easy_. And waking up to the sight of my bombed out district, the carts hauling away the skeletal remains of my dead family and friends, there seems so little left to live for. I find myself rubbing anxiously at my shoulders, back, temples, and wrists, trying to work out pain from places I didn’t even know it was possible to hurt. Like my scalp. How does my scalp hurt?

Why does _everything_ hurt? When they released me from District 13 after Snow’s execution and the subsequent armistice and presidential election, they gave me a clean bill of health. But I can’t sleep through the nightmares–horrible dreams filled with screaming children, the metallic smell of blood, and monsters with human eyes–and there’s an oppressive languor afflicting me. Sometimes I panic for no apparent reason, gripping onto whatever I can for security until the feelings pass, leaving me trembling and covered in a cold sweat. The doctors said I am still suffering effects of post-traumatic stress from the 74th Games, and maybe that’s all this is. Regardless of whatever label they smack onto it, it’s unbearable.

I can’t shake the feeling that I’m waiting for something, and so I crawl out of bed every morning, dutifully attaching my prosthesis, and go through the motions, waiting for them finally to have some sort of meaning. Most days I’ll bake in my kitchen from early morning to early evening, talking to no one until Greasy Sae sends her granddaughter Aggie to my home in the Victor’s Village to fetch what I’ve made for distribution. It’s a lonely life, but at least I can be productive here.

Today is like any other day until I hear the knock at my front door, an unfamiliar, fervent, impatient sound completely unlike Aggie’s timid rapping. When Haymitch swings by, which isn’t often, he staggers in unannounced, and with all my other family and friends gone, I can’t think of anyone else it would be. I’m lumbering toward the door, wiping excess frosting from my hands onto my apron, when there’s a second, much louder, knock.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” I call out, eager to let whoever is waiting on the other side of the door know that I’ve heard them.

When I swing open the door, I’m surprised to see her standing there. I don’t know her name, but she lives in the house across the way, and Haymitch tells me she was the Victor of the Quarter Quell. They used her, like me, in District 13 to film propos for the war effort, but since we never filmed any together, and they kept the Victors sequestered from the general population and from each other, I don’t know anything about her. I don’t even think we’ve ever spoken to one another, and in such a small district, smaller now than ever, that seems a bit odd. I feel remorseful about it, like I should be making more of an effort.

She’s not particularly big. Or pretty. But I’ve noticed her and have seen her coming and going, bundled up, with a bow slung over her shoulder as she trudges through waist-high snow drifts, usually accompanied by some slight blonde-haired girl who must be her sister. Occasionally I’ll see her with a lanky guy who favors her in appearance. He shares her dark olive skin and gray eyes and seems to be, based off their looks and common mannerisms, some sort of relative, maybe a cousin.

“Hey,” I greet her, my tone friendly and welcoming, and at the sound her eyes dart downward so that she's looking at one of her hands hanging at her side, clutching several rabbits by their legs.

“Hey,” she mumbles back, and her voice is so unsettlingly familiar that I claw at the back of my neck, trying frustratedly to pinpoint how exactly I know it. “I brought you these,” she says, holding the rabbits out to me, still not making eye contact. Her cheeks are flushed a rosy color from the brisk air, and I realize that my initial impression of her was incorrect. She is actually quite pretty, and in an interesting way, where I know I could try and fail a thousand times to draw her, never coming close to capturing her. Her eyes are the exact shade of a late winter’s sky, dark storm clouds made cool by a blanket of falling snow.

“Thanks,” I tell her, touched by the gesture. Looking down at the dead rabbits in my hand, I notice each one had been shot straight through the eye. “You must be one hell of a shot,” I chuckle.

She smiles, a small, shy expression that disappears almost as soon as it finds its way to her face, but she doesn’t say anything. We stand there in an awkward silence for several agonizing seconds before she clears her throat. “Well, I’d better go,” she explains. “I’m dropping food off to people around the district and just thought I’d come by since I hadn’t been here yet.” She gives me a polite almost-smile and turns to leave.

I feel bad about taking food from others who likely need it more, but I don’t want to offend her by outright rejecting the rabbits, reasoning that she might not come back if I do. “Wait. Let me pay you,” I offer, hoping she can pass the money along to others who need it.

She stops and shakes her head immediately, a resolute motion that says she won’t hear any of it. “No. I have plenty of money,” she adds. “That’s not why I do this.”

“I know,” I tell her. And I do. As a Victor, I know she’s well provided for by the Capitol, even under the new government. It seems like she's trying to be useful, like me. Maybe she’s just going through the motions, too. “Let me pay you another way–a trade. Here, come on in,” I urge her, stepping aside and motioning for her to come inside the house and out of the frosty air. When she doesn’t move, I laugh and hold both my hands up, including the dead animals. “I don’t bite,” I assure her, suddenly anxious that her experiences in the arena, whatever they might have been, have put her unnecessarily on guard against me.

She looks wary but steps across the threshold into the house, following me down the hall and into the kitchen. As we step into the large open space, her shoulders visibly relax at the sight before her, a day’s worth of baking splayed out on baking sheets and tucked into wicker baskets and canvas bags.

“Ah, yes. You’re the baker,” she murmurs in understanding, a smile dawning on her face. She closes her eyes and deeply inhales the smell of the room, the yeasty aroma flavored with notes of cinnamon and allspice, as if she is remembering that this is what a bakery smells like.

I smile and grab the nearest canvas bag. It’s loaded with nut bread and cheese buns, a couple loaves of bread and a wrapped pastry, iced with leaves I flavored with mint. “Here,” I offer. “Take this.”

She demurs, tucking her hands behind her back. “I couldn’t.”

I laugh again at her stubbornness, which I can easily match with my own. “You could,” I insist. “And _should_. It’s the least I can do for the girl who just brought me my dinner.” I jostle the bag impatiently in front of her several times until she takes it from me.

“Fine, have it your way,” she laughs, and its breathy sound hits me directly in my gut, like a well-placed punch to my solar plexus. When our eyes lock, her smile falls away, her brows furrowing and forehead creasing in bemusement. “I should go,” she says in a voice no louder than a whisper.

I nod, speechless and struggling against the sudden constriction in my throat. “I’ll see you around?” I splutter, hating that I sound so eager and hopeful, that a few minutes with this girl, whoever she is, can leave me feeling this way. There's something about the way she looks at me that's uncanny.

She nods, chewing her lower lip thoughtfully. “Yeah,” she says, “I’d like that.” It almost sounds like a question, as if she can’t quite believe her own mind. She turns around and begins to walk down the hall toward the front door. My feet feel stupidly rooted to the ground, and I can’t follow her to walk her out for fear of falling flat on my face. “Bye,” she calls over her shoulder, giving me a slight wave.

I find my voice and manage to blurt out, “Hey.”

She pauses and turns around with an expectant look on her face, one eyebrow arched in interest.

My feet begin to move, swiftly and unconsciously, until I’m standing a pace away from her. “I’m Peeta, by the way,” I say, wiping my hand again onto my apron and offering it to her.

She smiles shyly and takes my hand in hers, shaking it. Her delicate fingers feel cool against my palm, and the sensation of her skin against mine is exquisite and excruciating. “I’m Katniss,” she says.

I never want to let her hand go, but I know I have to. My thumb swipes once across the smooth skin on the back of her hand, a kneejerk reaction of some kind that neither of us mentions. “It was nice to finally meet you, Katniss,” I tell her, and as she drops my hand and walks out the door, my eyes follow her as she cuts a path back to her house through the light dusting of snow.

When she shuts her door behind her, I finally close my own front door, leaning my forehead heavily against it. Only then do I truly exhale the shaky, ragged breath of a man who has realized that his soul has caught on fire.

*******************

The cafeteria smells like rancid meat. Although I overhear someone commenting that the beef stew is delicious, my stomach roils at the odor, and I bite back the bile rising in the back of my throat at the thought of having to choke down that shit.

Of course my nausea might have something to do with the fact that I’m going to see _her_.

The guards trail me as I make my way through the cafeteria line, gathering my bowl of soup and stale crust of over-baked bread onto my tray and then carefully balancing it on the palms of my shackled hands.

They confiscate my spoon, saying I might use it as a weapon. Like I’d gouge her eyes out with a fucking spoon or something. I’d resent them for this, but I suppose they know better than I do at this point.

Thankfully, the guards don’t attempt to tell me where to sit. They let me steer us through the crowded room, passing numerous empty chairs along the way. They must know, surely, that I’m looking for _her_.

I hear her before I see her, her husky laughter carrying over the din of the room. My heart hammers at the sound, anger washing over me. I hate that she can sound so carefree after everything, and I force myself to take a deep breath and count to ten to rein in my temper. If I lose it here, they’ll revoke my newly instated lunchroom privilege. My head darts to the left, tracking the sound of her, and then I spot her: sitting next to Gale Hawthorne.

I might have fucking expected that, but it still incenses me to see how close they are, how her arm brushes against his as she laughs, holding her hands to her cheeks like she’s trying to keep them from cracking open. I wonder if they’re officially a couple now, and I vow to ask her, to jab her with whatever insult I can to try to make her hurt.

Here I am in fucking hell, and she couldn’t care less. She never did.

Purposefully now, determined to shut up the whole damned lot of them, I walk up to the table and stand there at the empty chair next to Johanna Mason. The fluorescent glare of the cafeteria lights shine off the top of her fuzzy head, and as I glance at it, I’m reminded of my memories of Katniss, all blinding and shiny and overcast with a sickly yellow sheen. The doctors say it’s the tracker jacker venom that makes them look like that. I think maybe it’s disgust.

Odair is all arrogance, showing off with some inane story as he clutches the hand of his wife. He’s laughing so hard he’s red-faced, and when he notices me he falls silent. As his laugh dies in his throat, it creates a strangled, pitiful sound, and the rest of the table falls silent, too. Their discomfiture is palpable, and it pleases me. Pimple-faced Delly Cartwright, seated across from _her_ , stares up at me with her insipid, moony eyes. “It’s so nice to see you out... and about,” she says, panic and insincerity dripping off every syllable, so blatantly obvious even I know she’s lying.

Johanna gestures to the metal handcuffs digging into my flexed wrists. “What’s with the fancy bracelets?” she asks.

Leave it to Johanna to cut right through the shit. “I’m not quite trustworthy yet,” I reply. “I can’t even sit here without your permission.” The tray balances unevenly on my palms as I shift my weight off my prosthetic, which is rubbing uncomfortably against my leg from the unfamiliar sensation of bearing my weight again. It’s a distraction that I’m thankful for because it gives me something to do other than bore a hole through _her_ with my eyes.

Pulling the chair out, Johanna pats its seat and speaks directly to the guards. “Sure he can sit here. We’re old friends….”

“Johanna,” Odair says in a warning tone, shaking his head once to communicate to her that I’m not welcome here, that she shouldn’t say whatever it is she had planned to say. He leans down and murmurs something to Annie, who nods in understanding.

Fucking Odair. It figures he’d be a prick, that he’d take _her_ side. He always did. But I’ll get him back.

Finnick rises, scooping up his empty tray along with his wife’s and stacking them, grasping her hand with his as if to keep her well away from me. “If we’re going to fit in that walk, we better go,” he says by way of excuse. He nods to me and says, “Good seeing you.”

I keep my voice smooth and calm, not betraying any hint of how badly I’d like to throttle him. “You be nice to her, Finnick,” I say with a smile that doesn’t match my tone, nodding to Annie. “Or I might try to take her away from you.”

Finnick gives _her_ a fleeting look that she doesn’t catch, one that looks a lot like pity to me, but he doesn’t reply to my taunts. He walks away as if I’ve said nothing at all, like I’m not even standing here. Gritting my teeth, I drop my tray down onto the table with a clatter and fall into the chair next to Johanna, balling my hands into fists under the table so that I can dig my fingernails into my palms. I grind my wrists against the metal of the handcuffs, and the pain anchors me to this horrible place–still better than that _other_ place I go to.

The silence at the table is deafening, and finally, after what feels like an hour of deep breathing, I work up the nerve to look from where my hands are planted on my lap and meet _her_ eyes.

She’s smiling at me, an unlikely enough sight for her, and in this context, completely inexplicable. Her eyes are wide, her smile open, and it’s like she doesn’t even know who I am or what we’ve said or done to each other. Absentmindedly, she scratches at her throat, right where I tried choking the life out of her, worrying her flesh as if she is considering something, and then she asks me if I’m enjoying my time in District 13.

She actually asks me if _I’m enjoying my time_.

It renders me speechless, the cruelty and apathy of the question. Is this some sick joke, some attempt to trick me into believing she doesn’t even know me?

Katniss Everdeen is fucking with my head, and I don’t have a single thing that I can say about it. I suppose this is what she does, how she holds all her power. That’s what they told me in the Capitol, anyway, and I shouldn’t be surprised to see it validated now. Her mind games, that’s what she’s known for.

I place my hands on the table, rubbing at one of the sores on my wrists left by the tight shackles. “Yeah, I’m having a wonderful time,” I tell her sarcastically.

She stares at my shackles, frowning as she considers them, but doesn’t ask why I look like a prisoner. If she catches my sarcasm she fails to show it and, using her spoon, she points between me and Johanna. “So,” she asks, chewing on a piece of her bread, “if you’re old friends, how do you two know each other? Are you from District 7, too?”

Johanna gives a short guffaw but doesn’t answer, choosing instead to smirk viciously down at her food, which she’s agitatedly pushing around her plate. I can see her biting the inside of her cheek to fight saying something, and that concerns me, too, because since when did Johanna Mason mince words?

Hawthorne puts his fucking arm on Katniss and whispers something in her ear. She frowns in response and looks down at the schedule tattooed on her arm. “So soon?” she asks him. He glances at me and then back to her, nodding.

In one swig he finishes his carton of milk and gestures to her half-eaten food. “You done?”

She shrugs uncertainly, but he stands anyway, pulling her up and steering her away from the table with his hand on her lower back. He shoots a look at Delly and mouths silently, “I’ll take her.”

Take her where? I bet you will, fucking asshole. I bet he’s all too happy to _take her_.

She leaves the cafeteria with Hawthorne, never looking back. I’m already forgotten.

I’m so busy thinking about where Hawthorne takes Katniss and how often that I don’t notice I’m clawing the table or muttering under my breath until Delly places a hand gently over mine and asks me sympathetically, “Are you okay?”

No, I’m not okay. I’m not fucking okay. I’m never going to be _fucking okay_.

My head falls to my chest, and before I know it the mutts are closing in on me, their teeth gnashing to the soundtrack of her laughter, and I’m sobbing and then screaming, tearing at my hair, and I feel strong hands on me, dragging me up and away. I thrash and kick against them because I don’t want to go back _there_. I just want to understand how she could do any of this to me.

This is all her fault. She has ruined me, and all she can do is ask if I’m _enjoying my time_.

*******************

When I ask them if they’re going to cause any brain damage, they patiently explain the procedure _is_ brain damage, a series of directed laser pulses strategically applied to specific parts of the brain. But, since they’re only going to be targeting the parts of my brain that have been damaged by the Capitol, they believe it will work like a double negative, creating an effect that is, in aggregate, positive. By targeting and eliminating the memories the Capitol altered, specifically any and all of my memories of Katniss, and any related to my torture, they tell me I may be able to lead a meaningful, healthy life. I might even feel happy again, unafraid.

Dr. Nepenthe looks at me patiently, sympathetically, her deep-set, dark, cavernous eyes comforting me, even if there’s the chance that everything she says isn’t real, that I’m hallucinating it all.

No wonder Katniss hadn’t recognized me earlier. “And she had this done, too?” I croak, my voice still hoarse from screaming.

Dr. Nepenthe nods. “After your last meeting she felt she had become a threat to herself and to others, and so she offered to be the test patient for the therapy. This way, she could continue her work as the Mockingjay for filming and could also contribute to your rehabilitation by providing us with a baseline metric for the procedure.”

I scoff at the notion that she’d do anything for me. No, she probably had them erase her memories of me simply because she couldn’t stand to live with the guilt anymore.

Well, that explains the awkward silence at the lunch table, how even Delly dreaded to see me. Katniss had all her memories of me burned away.

“What’s to stop other people from mentioning these erased memories to her–or to me, if I go through with it–and forcing us to remember?” I ask Dr. Nepenthe.

She gives her narrow shoulders the slightest of shrugs. “Well, there won’t be anything left _to_ remember. But to answer your basic question: nothing, Peeta. There’s nothing stopping anyone from disclosing to you that you’ve had this procedure done. They’re free to say whatever they’d like. But I think that anyone who cares about either of you will choose to keep their knowledge to themselves to prevent disorientation or disruption to your lives. We’ll work to keep Katniss sequestered from you and vice versa, and any further interactions you have with her will be erased from her memory and yours, at least until the end of the war.”

“What happens then?” I ask.

With a clipped smile, she gives a direct answer. “Then you go about your own lives, free of the past and each other.”

I nod, appreciating her bluntness. “Will it hurt?”

“Not at all. We’ll perform the procedure on you under sedation, while you sleep, starting with your most recent memories and working backward until they’ve all been expunged. You’ll wake up in the morning with a mild headache, the targeted memories gone. It’s as simple as that.”

The thought of undergoing a painless procedure to root out everything that hurts me doesn’t seem to have much of a drawback.

She cautions me, “The procedure is still very experimental, and we provide you no guarantee that it will be entirely successful, but we feel that, in your case, the prognosis would be a vast improvement upon your current condition.”

I’m still restrained to the hospital bed from my meltdown, strapped down with nylon bands by my chest and all my limbs, and her words make me release a caustic laugh. Anything would be a ‘vast improvement upon my current condition.’ My IV port pulls uncomfortably at my skin, and I gaze at the blood pulling upward into the tube. They could take every last drop of my blood, and I wouldn’t care. They could take all of me, every memory.

“Take them,” I say, turning my head away from her to stare blankly at the concrete wall. “Every memory of her. I don’t want them either.”

*******************

 _This was the last time I saw her_.

As I lie strapped down to the hospital bed, staring at the flickering fluorescent lights overhead, waiting for her, I count the pattern of the flickers. Three short. Three long. Three short. Repeated, over and over again. It seems like the lights are speaking to me, telling me something I can’t understand. My pulse races, but I focus on inhaling and exhaling slowly and steadily, to ward off the terror, if I can.

The clock on the wall, surrounded in a thick metal cage, ticks its way to midnight before the door to my room swings open, and _she_ steps through.

She looks small and insignificant, and her face must be flushed from exertion because she’s laboring to breathe. “Hey,” she says in a weak voice, wrapping her arms around herself to cradle her ribs. After she speaks to me her eyes dart nervously around the room, toward the one-way mirror on the wall and to my IVs, looking anywhere but at my face.

It’s like she doesn’t want to touch anything in the room or look into my eyes for fear that my malady is catching.

“Hey,” I reply, my tone making her frown. I don’t try to say anything else. I’ve done my part, summoning her here. I shouldn’t have had to do that, and I’m not about to make things easy for her now that she finally is.

“Haymitch said you wanted to talk to me.” She coughs the words out, like she’s choking on them.

“Look at you, for starters,” I retort.

Her gray eyes meet mine, then, finally. When I see the hurt radiating from them I understand how pathetic she is. This is no mutt sent to kill me. She is an authentic mess, a naturally occurring disaster, and there is nothing about her I don’t pity. In her gray eyes I can see how profoundly they have fucked with her head, too, leaving behind a fragment. If she’s a mutt, it’s only because she’s an incomprehensible mixture of who she was and all that's left.

“I was so sure I hated you,” I whisper, and she nods in understanding, closing her eyes to savor the bitter taste of my words.

“I hated myself enough for the both of us,” she confesses. “And I hated what they did to you, who you became.”

My laugh is like gunfire, cold shards of metal that pierce the flesh. “Oh, you shouldn’t have bothered. I hated that _enough for the both of us_.”

I gaze dispassionately at the girl standing in front of me as she nervously shifts her weight from one foot to the other, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “You’re not very big, are you? Or particularly pretty?” I observe neutrally. Because she isn’t, not really. There’s nothing about her, physically, to account for the gnawing sensation in my gut.

She laughs softly and nods, biting her lip. “It killed me when you said that.”

“Why?” I prompt her. “Why would it matter what I really thought of you when it was all for the Games?”

Shaking her head, she dismisses the question. “Forget it.” Her lower lip trembles almost imperceptibly, mirroring the nervous tremors in my own body. I haven’t been able to control them, and at times they’re so severe I can’t even grasp a utensil between my fingers. As I look at her, my hands spasm, maybe because I’d like to strangle her, but probably because I’d like to see if it hurts me to hold her.

She stands there awkwardly, shooting pensive glances at the one-way mirror as if to locate where exactly our unseen audience is standing, how many of them line the window with their clipboards and dictaphones as they cluck and prattle away about the poor fucked up ‘star-crossed lovers.’

“Look, I don’t feel so well. Maybe I’ll drop by tomorrow,” she mumbles, backing away from me already.

Leaving. She’s leaving. She hasn’t even been here five minutes, and she can’t wait to escape. I glance at the clock and notice that the hands are gone, just like the sound they made as they plunked their way around the clock face. Aside from my ragged breath and the light tread of her feet on the checkered tile as she walks away, the room is deathly silent.

 _It’s gone_ , I think. _Whatever existed between us is gone_. She’s done with me and whatever we had between us. I try to console myself that it was never real, anyway, so what did I really lose?

I find my voice as she reaches the door, and I call out to her, speaking to the back of her head, for some reason desperate for her to stay another moment. Mustering up every ounce of strength I have, I manage to utter her name, “Katniss. I remember about the bread.”

She whips her head around and shushes me, holding her index finger up to her lips. “We shouldn’t talk about that now,” she cautions me in a whisper, anxiously looking to the plate glass window. “Not yet.”

Not understanding, I press on. “We need to talk about it now,” I urge. “If not now, when?”

I scour her face for clues, any hint that would explain why I threw her the loaves of bread and risked a beating for her. Why, when I saw her the next day in the school courtyard, she blushed and picked a dandelion when I tried to make eye contact with her. Why we never spoke to each other until the day of the Reaping.

It dawns on me, as simple and plain as the most basic and essential of truths. “I must have loved you a lot.” As I gaze at her, I wonder how I ever could have loved someone like her, where that love came from. And I wonder where love like that goes when it dies.

She glances toward the one-way mirror, and my eyes follow her. The wall where the mirror had been is smooth now, just sterile white concrete. “It won’t be long now,” she exhales in relief.

I frown as I notice that my IV stand has disappeared along with the restraints that had been holding me down. The walls around us begin to crumble, first trailing thin lines of dust to the floor and then collapsing in brick-sized chunks. Through the thick cloud of dust it’s hard to discern her shape.

“And did you love me?” I ask her.

She looks down at the floor, once checkered but now just the dull battleship gray of the broken concrete, and answers bleakly, “Everyone says I did. Everyone says that’s why Snow had you tortured. To break me.”

It’s not an answer, but it’s the only one I get. She disappears into the haze, and as soon as she is gone, I have already forgotten her face. As the world in my mind breaks down around me, I lay there inert, waiting for the oblivion to swallow me, too, wanting nothing more than to forget that she didn’t say “yes.”

*********************

_Can what happens next be called a memory?_

There are incomprehensible flashes of vision and sensation that amount to nothing. Pinpoints of light shining into my eyes, cold hands canvassing my body, pressing into my ribs, touching me, every touch a violation, an intrusion into my sacrosanct self. A machine beats in tandem to the pounding of my heart.

My hands curl around a throat, the bones shifting and squeezing beneath my fingers. A pair of murderous eyes stare into mine, taunting me. Blood drips from her teeth, fangs that snarl and gnash wordlessly at me, wheezing and gasping words that call to me, begging for death.

My lungs try to draw in air, but instead of air, my mouth finds water, an endless stream of water, and I drown in it. I cough and splutter and cry for a mother who never loved me, and then my cries are met with blows, just like they were when I was a child. Feet and hands kick and claw at me, blood pours from my head into my eyes, and I weep until I black out.

There are syringes, menacing metallic needles with impossibly large gauges. They disappear into my body, the needles becoming her fingers, gouging into me, ripping me apart down to my bones as she laughs and shreds my skin.

She kisses me, her tongue forcing its way into my mouth, and she bites down on me, drawing blood. Her forearm clamps me by my neck, holding me to the wall, her eyes flashing fire and hatred.

She fucks Gale Hawthorne, his body pressed roughly against her, pushing into her, her hips meeting every thrust, and she moans his name in ecstasy. Their fingers dance together, twining and skittering across each other’s flesh, and she tells him she wants him, she’s always wanted him.

I wake up in a puddle of my own urine, naked and shivering, and I trace the outline of the bruises on my body, drawing their shapes over and over so that I remember where they go.

The mud coats my face, and her hands push me into the muck, burying me. “They have to have a victor,” she hisses in my ear, suffocating me.

Our district smolders, plumes of smoke billowing into the pale blue sky, polluting it with soot and ash. She stands on a pile of corpses and sings, her words accompanied by the roaring fire behind her, the crackling of wood and hissing of burning flesh. She sings to me, tells me to run, but her feet pin me to the ground beneath her, grinding one of my wrists into the dirt until I scream out, my own spittle coating my face.

The hive falls from the tree onto the ground near me, and as the hive cracks open with a sickening thud, the tracker jackers hum furiously, spreading in every direction in pursuit of their mark. I hear her triumphant laughter, its sneering, vicious sound. Their venom sears through my body, and the world explodes.

They do this to me until I tell them I wish it could be her. As the memories rupture, bursting apart, I weep in joy to see them go. None of them are her.

And I need to see her.

*********************

Nothing is right about this scenario. Finnick paces anxiously off to my left, twirling and spinning his trident in irregular patterns, each pass of the spikes in Katniss’ direction sending a jolt of panic through my body. Johanna stands slightly apart from us, her arms folded defiantly, a leer painted onto her face. Beetee is telling me that Katniss needs to go with Johanna down to the beach, that I’m too slow and need to stay behind.

But I’m not listening to his words of reason. I’m looking at her face, begging her not to let them separate us. Without speaking, I try to apologize to her, to tell her I should have listened to her, because there is no way for us to stay together without breaking our alliance, and it’s still too early in the Game for that.

Katniss walks up to me, standing so close I can feel the heat of her breath fanning across my face in small, measured gusts. She takes her hands and cradles my face, the pads of her fingers gently stroking my cheeks. I shudder at the sensation, fighting the urge, even here, to trap her lips with mine.

Her eyes fall to my lips as if she had been reading my mind. “Don’t worry,” she promises. “I’ll see you at midnight.”

Her voice is low and purposeful to reassure me that soon it will be just us again, like she’s always wanted. I want to protest about her leaving, to reason with her, but she presses her mouth to mine, her warm lips capturing my lower lip between hers. Her lips are slightly chapped from dehydration, and she tastes like salt and oysters, but despite this, I could kiss her all night. Her touch ignites a fire in my chest, a warmth that radiates outward to every part of my body, and I greedily crush my mouth against hers, letting my hands clutch her forearms. As she pulls away, a small sigh escapes her, and she languidly opens her eyes, a temporary look of happiness spreads across her face.

I have the fleeting thought that I'd always like to remember this expression, the look on her face that I had put there with my lips, and for some reason I can’t recall, this makes me terribly forlorn.

I want to kiss her again, to hold her tightly against my body to keep her here, safe with me, but before I can, she’s turned away.

“Ready?” she asks Johanna, who nods tersely in reply and grabs the heavy coil of wire, already walking into the jungle, toward the beach.

As Katniss follows, disappearing into the gloom of the forest, she turns around to look at me one last time. “I’m sorry,” she says, her voice a haunted lamentation. “I shouldn’t have left you.”

My heart sinks into my gut, a leaden weight. I want to reach to her, to run to her, but I can’t move. “No,” I tell her, my voice rasping like a dead leaf skittering across the ground. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I shouldn’t have let you go.”

She turns away, then, without another word and is swallowed by the night, the tall ferns and palm fronds engulfing her as she walks into the jungle.

It isn’t long before our plan collapses into chaos and panic. In the unnaturally quiet jungle, I can hear the yelling and breaking of branches long before I see them: Enobaria and Brutus ambushing us.

I don’t wait to understand what has happened. I only need to know where she is, so I run into the jungle to find her, swinging my machete wildly as I pump my arms. In the distance, I can hear Finnick screaming for Johanna and Katniss, maybe to save them, maybe to kill them. And then I hear the boom of a cannon.

Within seconds I realize I am being pursued by Brutus.

He is massive and hulking, but his adrenaline has gotten the better of him. He lunges recklessly at me, grabbing me by my prosthetic and throwing me to the ground, and I roll to the side and swing my machete upward, cutting him across his face. He bellows and lunges downward at me again, holding his gaping wound with his left hand, blood seeping out from between his fingers and spraying the ground below him. In the dark of the jungle, the blood looks like black paint, not like blood at all. I slash again, and this time I make contact with his throat, painting a long line across his flesh. The paint spreads rapidly, spilling onto me, covering me. Brutus collapses to his knees next to me, falling back onto the balls of his feet, clutching at his throat as he coughs and sputters. As he sits there dying, I am already forgotten.

I don’t wait to watch him die. Instead, I bolt in what I believe to be the direction of the lightning tree, but without Katniss as guide, I have to acknowledge that I am lost. A cannon booms overhead, signalling another death, hopefully Brutus’.

Enobaria. Chaff. Johanna. Finnick. Beetee. Katniss. I don’t know which of them has died, but there’s one cannon I can’t account for. There are so many of them left. I need to protect her, if it’s not too late, but I can’t even get back to where I started. How can I hope to find her? The panic and frustration crest over me like a tsunami, overpowering me. All hope is lost.

Then I hear her screaming for me.

“Katniss? Katniss?” I call back, desperately trying to discern her shape through the sable shadows of the night. As I frantically search for her, the vines and ferns begin to disappear around me, sucked into an abyss that could be a Gamemaker’s trick or could be my mind finally snapping.

Trees begin to fall around me, groaning and crashing, violently throwing splintered branches into the air. The ground trembles beneath my feet as every part of the arena is violently ripped apart.

Her voice is hoarse and crazed, but it sounds like music to my ears because she is alive. She is still _alive_ , and I am going to find her and never let her go. “Peeta! I’m here! I’m here!” she yells in the distance.

“I’ll find you!” I promise, running for her, jumping over foliage that disappears as I pass. “I’m on my way back to you."

But the night is black like Brutus’ blood, and the stars have been swallowed whole, leaving nothing but darkness behind.

I howl for her, alone on a shadowy plain, and then everything ceases to be.

*********************

The water laps over the sand in monotonous, rhythmic motions, an artificial tide that never varies. It ebbs and flows in exactly the same way, nothing more than a contrivance counting down the seconds to midnight. We sit in companionable silence for what feels like an eternity, listening to the water scrape its path across the shingle. She leans her head back, resting it heavily on my shoulder, and sighs. Her weight comforts me, roots me to her, and I reach my hand across my body to caress the smooth locks of her hair. I’d forgotten how much I love the feel of her body near me, the way she responds to my touch on the rare occasions when she allows herself. The proximity of her body makes my heart thunder so violently in my chest it reminds me of a booming cannon.

“Katniss,” I murmur, enjoying the exotic sound of her name on my tongue, the painless beauty of it. “It’s no use pretending we don’t know what the other is trying to do.”

I can feel as well as hear her exasperated groan. “We’re forgetting each other. Isn’t that awful enough without having to say it?” Her voice sounds weary, as if I’ve ruined something by speaking.

My hand moves to her cheek, tracing its contours lightly. “You’re my whole life, you know,” I confess to her, my heart never feeling more open to her than it does in this moment.

She pushes away from me and turns to face me, her gray eyes shooting sparks from their stormy depths. “Then why are you trying to forget me?” she demands. “If I’m your ‘whole life’? Why would you do that?”

I shrug, and the the answer tastes like a bitter, half-swallowed pill lodged in the back of my throat. “You forgot me first.” I can hear the petulance in my tone, and I cringe at how infantile I must sound to her.

A wry half-smile tugs at the corner of her lips. “Don’t you know me at all?” she asks, sounding as amused as if she were speaking to a young child. She folds her hands together, crossing her fingers and gazing down at them. “I have a bad temper, Peeta, and sometimes that makes me impulsive. But _you_. _You_? You’re supposed to be the reasonable one, the measured one. You’re supposed to fight for us.”

I break our gaze and stare out across the water at the hulking shape of the Cornucopia in the distance. Wracking my brain, I try to think of what would compel me to want to forget her, but I can only draw a blank. “I think that if I forgot you I would never be happy again,” I tell her, and as I say it, I know this is one of the core truths of my existence. “Apparently it was different for you,” I stammer, looking for the right words. “I’m not saying it wasn’t hard. But I guess there are other people who make your life worth living.”

She gives a frustrated laugh. “Dammit. How do you expect me to respond to something like that? It’s a faithless thing to say. Did you really think so little of yourself and my feelings for you? I hate that you thought that. Did you ever consider that I had to forget you because I’d already lost you?”

I disregard her point and decide to drive mine home instead. Reaching just below the neckline of my jumpsuit, I retrieve the gold locket, lifting it above my head by its chain and handing it to her. “Here,” I say, grasping her hand and placing the locket there. “I want you to have this.” The locket is still warm from the heat of my body, and as she takes it, she presses it to her lips and closes her eyes, as if she is praying to a sacred talisman.

“This,” she says. “But _this_ was so much worse.” When she finally opens her eyes, I can see that she’s choking back tears.

The sight makes my stomach twist in painful knots, cancerous pangs that eat away from the inside. “Aren’t you going to open it?”

She takes a shuddering breath and, with one deft movement, opens its clasp. The inside of the locket is blank, the photos I had placed there gone. I try to remember what I meant to say to her, but those words are gone, too.

That’s when I realize what is happening. _Everything_. That’s what they’re going to take from me.

I look out over the water, a smooth unbroken expanse now, unmarred by the spokes of the clock or the Cornucopia. If the water moves, I can no longer hear it.

Quickly, before they take her, too, I hold her face in my hands. I run my thumbs along the soft skin of her neck, stroking the delicate spot behind her ear. “You told me you needed me,” I say, my eyes riveted to her. “And I knew, then, that you loved me. It solved absolutely everything and nothing.”

“Because nothing made you want to live or die more,” she adds, her voice shaking. She leans in toward me and brushes her lips against my cheek, feathery, affectionate kisses that dance their way to the corner of my mouth and halt.

Before she can back away, I turn my head to meet her mouth, capturing her lips with mine. I kiss her with every ounce of love I have left, whatever they haven’t already taken from me. I kiss her to bury our past and to eulogize our future. These few precious seconds of the present are all I can promise her, ephemeral as they may be, and so I hold nothing back from her. She can have it all. She always could.

She slants her head, parting her lips for me, and I tangle my tongue with hers, eagerly touching and exploring every corner of her mouth, desperate to remember the way she tastes and feels. She moans into my mouth and wraps her fingers in my hair, restlessly tugging and pulling and then pressing me to her.

We kiss for what might be seconds or minutes or hours, but it could never be long enough for us, stuck in this place counting down to our doom.

We break apart to catch our breath, and as I pant for air, I find that I can’t tear my eyes from the sight of her cherry red lips, bruised and swollen from my kisses. In the silvery moonlight, her flawless olive skin glows, the loose wavy locks of her hair perfectly framing her face. She has never looked so beautiful, this girl of mine.

A bank of clouds obscures the moon, covering us in an all-encompassing shade, and as they pass, the moon fails to reappear. The night air has grown stale, and, in the absence of the arena’s ambient noise, I realize that I am losing her, that we don’t have long together. The thought of losing this memory is more than I can bear.

“Please let me keep this one,” I whisper against her lips, pressing mine to hers one more time.

But I don’t fight it–I can’t–as her fingers slip from my hair, and the beach slides away into nothingness as the girl who loved me is lost.

*********************

It's late; it must be past midnight. We went to bed hours ago, but I’m only now drifting off, lulled by the steady howl of the wind as it whistles past the glass plate windows of the Training Center, when her voice startles me awake. The sound is muffled by the fabric of my shirt, grasped tightly in her fist and held closely to her mouth.

“Peeta?” she whispers tentatively. “Are you awake?”

I tighten my arm around her, pulling her closer to me. “Mmhmm,” I reply, a low hum that emanates from the back of my throat. “I am now.” If tonight weren't our last night, I might have the spirit to chuckle about her question. Instead, I rest my chin on the top of her head, relishing the smell of her hair. Today it’s scented like vanilla, a familiar aroma that reminds me of home. Since I’ll never see home again, this smell–and Katniss in my arms–are precious, fleeting reminders of everything I am willing to lose.

“I… I’ve been thinking,” she says, and the seriousness of her tone makes me pull myself up a bit so that I can rest my head against the headboard and look down at her. She lifts her head to meet my eyes, and I can see how nervous she is. She unclenches her fist and thrums her fingers on my chest in an anxious pattern.

“About what?” I ask, twirling a loose strand of her hair around my index finger and then letting it fall back onto her delicate shoulder.

She pushes herself off of me and into a sitting position, her legs crisscrossed beneath her. Folding her hands in her lap, she looks down at them contemplatively. “I think we both know what we’re planning to do… in there,” she says, clearing her throat uncomfortably.

I don’t need to ask her what she means. I won’t do her that disservice. We both know what our plans are, what our hopes are for each other. We’re going into the arena together, but only one of us is walking out. And we each plan to ensure it’s the other who survives.

I nod at her, an invitation to continue.

She looks at me and tries to smile bravely, but it looks like a grimace instead, full of pain and remorse. “And since everyone thinks we’re married now, it wouldn’t matter…” She breaks off, unwilling to look at me, and shakes her head. “No, that’s not right.” She mutters something under her breath, rubbing her eyes and starting again. She takes a deep breath, perhaps to fortify herself, and clarifies, “I’ve been thinking that this is the last chance that either of us will have… to be… with someone and,” she pauses to scratch at her arm uncomfortably, “and... I was wondering if you’d want... to be with me.”

I sit up and stare intently into her eyes, searching them for answers. But, aside from the narrow pools of light that filter in through the slatted blinds, the room is dark, her eyes impassive, and looking at her only fills me with more questions.

“Katniss… what exactly are you saying?” I take her hands in mine, and I notice that she’s shaking, trembling actually, and I pull her back into my arms to steady her.

She whispers her reply into my neck. “I think that we should be together tonight. If you want.”

It doesn’t make sense to me why she would say this or why she would be willing to do this with me. I run my hand through her hair. “You once told me,” I point out, “that you couldn’t afford to think about dying. That you have your sister to think about. I need you to think like that tomorrow, Katniss. Please. For me.”

I can feel her shoulders begin to shake, and I hate that my words have made her cry, but I’m thankful they seem to have some effect. Maybe she’ll listen to me and fight to survive in there. I doubt it will be that easy–nothing with her ever is–but it’s worth hoping for, anyway.

She wraps her arms around my waist, her hands pressed flat against my back, and burrows her head into my chest. “What if I gave you tomorrow, Peeta?” she asks me, “would I get tonight?”

“But why?” I prod, needing to know. Her reasons can’t be what I want them to be. They never are.

“Because,” she says, pulling back and looking me straight in the eye, “if one of us happens to walk out of there alive, I want us to remember that they couldn't take _everything_ from us. Because they can’t take what we’ve already given away."

She can't be offering me her heart, but she's offering me something precious nevertheless, something sacred I would die to have, and I want her to know she could have that of me, too.

I nod, holding her gaze. “If it’s what you want.”

She nods in return, a small and determined smile on her face. “It’s what I want. With you.”

Cupping her face in my hands, I lean forward, sealing our promise with a kiss. She meets my kiss with an open mouth, and her eagerness to feel my tongue on hers makes me groan. We kissed once like this before, but it was all for the Games, or so she had said. Without breaking our kiss, she pushes herself lithely onto her knees and crawls onto my lap, wrapping her arms around my neck and pinning her legs tightly to my hips, plastering herself to my body as close as she can get.

Our kisses grow hungry, messy, and careless, missing each other’s mouths more often than not. When our hands start to roam across each other’s bodies, I can feel her rubbing herself against me.

We pull away to catch our breath, our chests heaving, and when she smiles, a sweet, shy smile given just for me, I know with certainty that I loved her on this day.

Her hands wind their way into my hair, tugging as my hips buck upward, pressing myself to her center. “This isn’t real,” I whisper into her ear, nibbling her lobe and sucking it into my mouth.

She moans, her eyes rolling back in her head, and asks, “Does it matter?” Her hands wrap themselves in the hem of my shirt and impatiently pull it upward, over my head. She tosses it onto the floor and then carelessly removes her own shirt.

I lean back far enough to take in the sight of her breasts, the small dusky nipples pulled into taut peaks. Tenderly, suddenly afraid she might vanish, I reach out and run my thumbs over them and then palm her breasts. They fit perfectly in my hands, like we were made to do this.

“No,” I say in a low voice, speaking what I think is the truth. “It doesn’t matter.”

I lower my mouth to one of her breasts, running my tongue down along the swell until I reach the nipple. Flicking it gently with my tongue and then worrying it with my teeth, she moans and arches her back, rising up on her knees to bring herself closer to me.

My hands fall, sliding down along her body, until they reach the waistband of her shorts. Even though this might just be a fantasy, I tentatively dip a finger below the elastic band, gauging her response to see if she’s changed her mind.

She silently encourages me, rocking her hips as she searches for friction.

I pull down her shorts in one swift motion, as far as I can, and she breaks away from me to shimmy out of them, kicking them to the foot of the bed.

“Can I touch you?” I ask. “I wanted–I want–to touch you.”

"Okay," she says, nodding and laying herself down on the bed, her hair haloed around her on the feather pillow. Pressing her knees together, she conceals herself from me, pointing. "Can you take your pants off, too?”

“Why... Are you feeling a little naked?” I give her my best lopsided grin and stand, sliding my pajamas and boxers off and stepping out of them carefully so I don’t trip. Her eyes fall from my face, making their way down to below my waist, and when she sees me for the first time, her eyes widen in what looks like alarm.

“Hey,” I chuckle, climbing onto the bed. “It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.” I crawl up toward her, gently encouraging her to open her legs to me by poking the inside of one of her knees with my index finger. “I would never hurt you,” I promise her. At my words, her legs fall open, and my eyes drop to look at her. I involuntarily moan at the sight, my right hand making its way from her ankle up to her calf, blazing a path upward to the juncture of her thighs.

I hover my body above hers, lowering myself enough to kiss but not to crush her. When I begin to trace her folds with my fingers, coating them in her arousal, she squeezes her eyes shut and releases a shuddering breath.

It’s so warm between her thighs, and I dip one of my fingers gently into her as her hips rock beneath me in a steady rhythm. Her lips part as she quietly whimpers, and I bend down swiftly to kiss her, to taste the sound she makes when I touch her.

“Katniss,” I whisper into her mouth. “Is this real?”

She holds my shoulder tightly with her left hand while the other glides down from my chest until she has wrapped it around my length. Her small hand doesn’t cover the full circumference, but it feels so impossibly good, it makes me want to come just at the touch. “Does it matter?” she says, still refusing to answer my question.

Using her hand, she rubs me along her center, the slick heat of her arousal coating me. She guides me to her entrance, and I look down at her, my arms trembling, and all I want is to tell her before she lets me inside her.

Her gray eyes lock on mine, and I know how she’s feeling because right now she’s looking at me the way I look at her. I tell her, “I don’t want to forget how I loved you like this. Exactly like this.”

I push inside her, and she gives a short hiss, grasping onto me tightly as she stretches for me.

She moans, and I’m not sure if it’s pleasure or pain in the sound or if it’s both.

“I’m so sorry,” I beg her as I slowly begin to move, pulling almost entirely out before I press myself deeper inside her.

“Don’t be,” she gasps as I rock my hips, and she’s moving her hips upward now to meet my thrusts.

I press my body close to hers and feel her heat beneath me, how we move as one person. Threading my hands together behind her head, I hold her head to mine, kissing her everywhere my mouth can reach.

“I don’t want to forget,” I cry out, and she holds me tightly, so close to her, closer than any person could ever be.

“So. Try. To. Remember.” Her voice halts at each word as I thrust in and out of her, a staccato that only emphasizes the futility of her point.

It won’t be long now, I know.

“I don’t think I can,” I confess, running my hands along her bare skin to try to remember her for as long as I can, to hold onto her as tightly as I can for what little time we have left.

The wind has stopped whistling outside the window, and the lights from the city have faded. It’s difficult to see her face now in the absence of light, and I reach my hand out to trace its lines, running my thumb along her lower lip as she cries out my name.

“Peeta,” she moans. “It’s okay.” She runs a hand through my hair, pushing the sweaty strands off my forehead. “I’ll see you soon,” she sighs.

I spill into her with a strangled cry and collapse onto the bare mattress.

The room is barren, and Katniss is gone. I feel like I am in a cell, a prison of my own making.

I cry into the night, a hollow sob she can’t hear anymore. My voice is fractured and rent, but I tell her anyway, wherever she has gone. I tell her I will see her soon.

************************

 _I love this memory_.

“So I’ve been thinking,” she says, her fingers braiding the vine she’d plucked from the rooftop arbor into a crown, weaving long lavender-colored wisteria flowers into it. “About this little problem of ours we’re having.” Her voice sounds as musical as the wind chimes moving in the balmy summer breeze.

Her head is heavy and warm in my lap, and with the way the late afternoon sunshine falls onto her face, I can’t recall a time I ever found her more beautiful than she is right now. Far below us I can hear the constant whir of traffic in the Capitol. It sounds as unfamiliar to me as the ocean the first time I’d heard it–a ceaseless, deafening wall of noise that is so overpowering and relentless, it might as well not exist at all.

I sigh, distractedly twirling her hair in my fingers, tying it into little knots. “Which problem is that?” I tease. “You’ll have to be more specific.” She could mean the death arena we’re about to be thrown into, but I know she means something far worse.

She sits up in a huff, leaving my lap feeling cold from wherever we’d been touching. “Peeta,” she scowls, “I’m talking about what’s going on in here.” She taps my temple. “They’re wiping your brain, or did you forget?”

I frown, suddenly in no mood for teasing, because of course I didn’t _fucking_ forget.

Trapping her hand in mine, I hold it just to feel its heat, real and tangible, and this is all the answer she needs to continue.

She looks at me gravely. “They’re going to take me from you unless we do something about it.”

All I can do is shrug in defeat. “What do you possibly expect me to do about it? They’re in my head, Katniss. It’s not like I can wake up and tell them to stop.”

She cocks an eyebrow. “Why not? Have you even tried?” Her cheeks are flushed–in anger, I think–and she gnaws ruthlessly on her lower lip. God, she looks so beautiful when she’s belligerent.

“Uh, okay,” I laugh. “Just like this.” I roll my eyes, squeeze them shut, and then comically pry them open with my fingers.

When I open them, I’m blinded by the glare of fluorescent lights shining directly overhead. Just around the edges of the lights, I can make out the filthy, water-stained ceiling tiles. Paralyzed, I realize I can’t move, even though I try to thrash and yell out. Someone hovers over me, their blurred face full of concern, shutting my eyes for me with one pass of their hand. I yelp and blink in fear, and when I open my eyes, I’m back on the rooftop again, Katniss looking at me pointedly. _What the holy fuck was that_?

“See? Maybe you’re not as helpless as you think,” she notes.

“That–that won’t work, though,” I gasp, still reeling from the sensation of being paralyzed. “I couldn’t move.” It’s too terrifying to attempt again, the feeling of being autopsied.

She nods and looks down at our entwined hands. “I know,” she replies stoically, as if she had also seen the lights and the grave face, had also felt the dead weight of my body. “But maybe something else will work.”

“Like what?” I can’t even begin to imagine what she means.

She lays her head back down in my lap and releases a pensive sigh, closing her eyes as I begin to stroke her hair again. “I don’t know. I guess we’ll have to think about it. Quickly.” Unconsciously, she rests her hand on my thigh, an intimate gesture that sends spikes of electricity shooting through every part of my body. I try not to think about the tingling in my groin, how badly I want her right now, right here on the rooftop.

I thought forgetting her would be a blessing, that it would be easy, but this is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. It’s worse than torture.

“You’re going to have to fight for us, Peeta,” she murmurs.

Pitilessly, the sun descends behind the distant snow-capped mountains to the west, uncaring that it marks the end of our perfect afternoon together. I gaze out at the vista of looming buildings that seem to stretch on to eternity, and I observe how they silently begin to buckle in upon themselves, creating cataclysmic clouds of rubble and dirt in their wake.

“Do you want to remember me or not?” she asks, her thumb caressing the muscle of my thigh over the fabric of my pants.

I close my eyes at her touch, and the roaring traffic fades away with the breeze and the tinkling wind chimes. There is only her hand on my thigh, the weight of her head in my lap. “It’s the only thing I want,” I answer. She’s all I want, all I ever wanted.

I want to freeze this moment and live in it forever, but they’re taking it from me.

“Then you need to try, for us. You can’t let me go without a fight. We don’t have much time.” She is urgent now, pleading.

"I'll try," I whisper, but when I open my eyes, I am alone, the memory of my promise all that remains of our day on the rooftop.

*********************

 _There is nothing of Katniss in this memory, so maybe I could hide her here_.

His eyes, blue like mine, shine down benignantly on me, his hand affectionately tousling my hair. The way his fingers comb through my hair calms me, but also exhilarates me. I’m not used to being touched. My mother never touches me except to pinch me roughly or to smack me on whatever bare skin she can reach, leaving hand-shaped welts behind in her wake. The tone of his voice is soothing, though, as he encourages me, and I wish I could fall asleep, just once, to a sound like that.

“That’s it, Peeta, you’re doing a great job,” he tells me.

I hold my hand as steady as I can, piping the frosting in a clumsy line along the perimeter of the cake. “Thanks, Dad,” I say, biting my tongue in concentration, trying not to mess this up like everything else.

This is the first time they ever let me decorate a cake. The product is maladroit, the cake a bit crooked, the frosting smeared in awkward clumps, but I’ve made it from scratch, start to finish. All by myself.

Katniss looms over my shoulder, far taller than I was at six years old. “It’s beautiful, Peeta.” She sounds so sincere, it makes me want to skip for joy.

I take a step back to admire my handiwork, and I feel her hand wrap itself chastely around mine, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

“You’ve done such a good job,” and when she says it, I know she’s praising me for bringing her here, too.

“It’s my birthday cake,” I tell her, gesturing with my free hand to the cake.

She beams down at me. “Is today your birthday?”

I bite my lip and look up at her. She’s so pretty. “Uh-huh,” I nod, blushing.

Katniss squeezes my hand again and crouches down to my height. “Thank you for sharing this with me, Peeta.”

Together we admire the cake I’ve made. Its white frosting is covered with the silhouettes of flying birds. Their black wings stretch across the surface, winding around the sides. One bird sits on a branch of a tree, as if listening to something. Next to the tree is the rudimentary outline of a casement window.

I frown when I see it, because even now, in this place, Katniss was already here.

“Oh, Peeta,” she laments, as we watch the icing fade line by line, as if the black coloring is being absorbed into the pale white frosting. “I’m so sorry they’re taking this from you.” She throws her arm around my shoulders and pulls me to her in a hug, comforting me, pressing my face to her body so that I don’t have to see this memory stolen from me.

I feel so ashamed that I couldn’t even hide her here. “Katniss,” I cry. “I don’t know what to do. I think you might be everywhere.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I gaze longingly at the smile on my father’s face, hoping to remember it, as it blurs and disappears into the haze. Squeezing my eyes shut, I melt into her arms.

Let them take this quickly, like a bandage roughly torn from a still-open wound. Clean me and then cover me in the balm of forgetfulness. But don’t make me feel it.

*********************

Her hand rests lightly on my chest, her fingers toying with the neckline of my sleeping shirt. Occasionally one of her fingers grazes my skin, the feel of a nail dragging across my flesh making me shiver and break out into goosebumps. I hold her tightly to me, rubbing comforting circles on her shoulder, trying to lull her back to sleep.

She’s had three nightmares so far tonight, and although I’m exhausted, I won’t fall back asleep until she does first.

“What are they about tonight?” I ask, not sure if I want to know.

We lie there quietly for several moments, listening to the wind whoosh by the sides of the train as we cut a path through the rainy night. Cool air whistles its way through the cracked window, carrying in the smell of damp and petrichor. The train rumbles across the tracks, sending small, constant vibrations throughout our bodies. The vibrations are giving me an erection, but in the murky light of the room, I hope she doesn’t notice because I don’t want her to misunderstand.

She burrows her face into my chest before answering. When she finally does, her voice is laced with sorrow. “Losing you,” she whispers.

“Hey,” I chuckle, “that’s no fair. You’re stealing my nightmares.”

I can feel her smile into my chest. “You say things like that, and I wish you could stay.”

I give her shoulder a tender squeeze. “I’m not going anywhere,” I promise her.

Her smile slides off her face. “But I am.”

“I know,” I sigh, pressing my face to the top of her head, inhaling the smell of her shampoo. Today it smells like raspberry.

“Remember when you asked me to stay with you?” I prod, trying to change the subject to something less depressing. I don’t want all our best memories together tainted with this tragic air of finality. If I have one chance left to live them, I want them to be perfect.

“Yeah, I remember,” she breathes, nothing more than an exhale, as she burrows deeper into me.

“Well, I think that was the happiest I’d ever been in my life,” I admit. “It made me feel so needed. Wanted. I don’t think you heard my reply.”

She looks up at me, unable to hide the gall she feels. I can’t tell what angers her most, but I think it might be our lives and not me. “I know what you said, Peeta. And it was a lie.”

“Maybe,” I concede, “but I meant it then.” It’s a weak answer, but sometimes the truth is a shabby, flimsy thing.

“We were never going to get ‘always’ anyway,” she reflects, resting her head back down on me, her hand a fist clutching the fabric of my shirt.

“But we have right now,” I muster with more enthusiasm than I feel, trying to cheer up Katniss Everdeen in my own mind.

“We have right now,” she agrees. Her hand skims down my chest to my stomach, and I hiss at the motion, my cock stiffening involuntarily in response.

I can see she’s looking at her fingers as they drift across my abdomen, tracing my tensed muscles through my shirt.

“You know, I had an idea,” she offers.

“What’s that?” My voice is thick with desire and curiosity.

“On where to hide me,” she answers.

“I think you’re everywhere, Katniss. What’s the point of even trying? I’ve loved you since I was old enough to remember.”

“Then go deeper,” she replies. “Hide me somewhere where nothing _wants_ to be found.”

I groan, knowing now where she’s going with this.

Her hand falls lower, lightly brushing the telltale bulge in my pants. “Hide me in your shame.”

“I don’t want you to know about that,” I protest, swallowing with difficulty as she palms me. There’s no point in arguing with her, I know. The cause has already been lost.

“But it’s not really _me_ that’s seeing it, is it, Peeta? It’s just your memory of me,” she counters. It’s a reasonable argument, and with each stroke of her hand, it’s making more and more sense to me.

“Okay,” I relent. “I’ll try hiding you there.” Nodding, I close my eyes and hold her steadfastly to me until I can’t hear the rain or the wind or feel the rumbling train or the press of her hand against me.

*********************

The springs of the bed squeak noisily beneath my weight, and even though I make every effort to move lightly, to hold my body as still as possible, the rhythmic squeaking is a telltale sign that I’m jerking off.

I run my hand up the length of my shaft and over my head, spreading the precum with my palm to lubricate myself. I keep my knees propped up to support my sketchbook, and as I pump my cock with one hand and occasionally fondle my balls with the other, I stare intently at the figure of the woman I’d drawn on the page.

“Not very anatomically correct, is she?” Katniss asks, leaning over my shoulder to take a closer look.

The woman is naked and lounging on a bed– _my_ bed–cupping her own enormous breasts and spreading her legs, revealing what I’d imagined a vagina looked like at thirteen but in all actuality looks like the cross section of a strawberry.

I close my eyes and groan. “Fuck, Katniss, this is… bad… enough... without your commentary.”

She smirks and leans her back against the headboard next to me. In my peripheral vision, I can see her valiantly struggling to contain her laughter, biting the inside of her cheek and wrapping her arms around her torso to hide the fact that she’s splitting her sides.

I throw my head up toward the ceiling and squeeze my eyes shut to try to block her out, relentlessly jacking myself like the overeager boy that I was.

“You know,” she says casually, “you could just masturbate to me.”

I hear her fingers rustling through the pages of my sketchbook as she peeks at the next few pages, and my eyes snap back open at the sound. “No!” I beg her. “Please. Don’t look at that. This is awful enough.”

Her gray eyes lock on mine in the sunlit room, all merriment gone from them, replaced with sympathy. And I know that she has seen what was on the other pages. Every other page is filled with drawings of her, thankfully only a couple of which qualify as even remotely erotic.

We are looking at each other, my hand still pumping myself, the tingling warmth and tightness in my balls spreading throughout my body, when my bedroom door opens, and my mother walks in.

“Peet–” she says, stopping and gaping in horror as she realizes she has walked in on me masturbating.

“Gah, mom–” I gasp, unable to stop myself from coming. As my orgasm washes over me, I squeeze my eyes shut, already crying from sheer mortification and the terror of what happens to me next.

Her voice is a winter gale when she finally spits out, “You are a filthy, disgusting, shameful creature. Clean yourself up right _fucking_ now, and get your ass downstairs. We’re going to have a little… discussion... about what happens to... obscene... pieces of shit.” My mother doesn’t wait for a reply before she spins on her heels and slams the door in its frame, rattling the entire wall with her fury.

Katniss snorts resentfully and rubs my shoulder. “Don’t listen to her,” she whispers in my ear, reaching across my body to cradle my face with one of her hands, holding my face so close to hers that she is all I can see, a messy blur.

She kisses the tip of my nose.

“You’re none of those things.” Katniss stands, moving off the bed to lock the bedroom door. When she turns back around, I’m already sobbing.

Not from the shame, not from the memory of the beating I endured afterward, but because my sketchbook is blank.

“It… didn’t... work,” I gasp, splintering apart as I realize I’m going to lose her and that there is nothing I can do about it.

“Oh, Peeta,” she says, climbing back onto the bed and drawing me into her arms. It doesn’t matter to her that I’m still exposed and covered in my own cum. She holds me, rocking us back and forth.

“I can’t hide you,” I gasp, digging my palms into my eyes. “For as long as I can remember, you’ve been everything. And I don’t… know… what to do...”

Her voice is quiet in my ear. “Then we try to enjoy what’s left.”

*********************

Her eyes are the first thing I see. They are the only damn thing in this arena worth noticing, as refreshing as cool stream water, as deep as a hidden cave, as dark as the night sky. I could die a hundred deaths staring into Katniss Everdeen’s eyes.

Claudius Templesmith’s words are still echoing through the arena when I decide to speak out. There seems little point in pretending that the odds are ever in our favor. They never have been.

“If you think about it, it’s not that surprising,” I reason, pushing myself gingerly off the ground, feeling the wound in my left leg pull open from the exertion. I limp toward her, pulling my knife out of my belt and dropping it to the ground, a crooked smile crawling onto my face despite the pain.

Because she is magnificent, and if that’s not something to smile about, then nothing is.

Instinctively, she pulls her bow on me, aiming it at my chest, immediately lowering it when she sees that I have no intention of hurting her. She’s a scrappy survivor, and she’s tough. But I’ve seen her soul, and right now it’s filled with shame for the kneejerk reaction she just had, the same one that has brought us here, together, to the end.

“No. Do it,” I say, knowing full well that she won’t.

She knows it, too. “I can’t. I won’t,” she begs, silently asking me to the be the one to end this.

Reaching out, I grab her right arm, still clutching her bow, and I give it an upward nudge. “Do it,” I tease her.

She scowls, making that face I love, and shakes her head at me, tossing her bow to the ground. “Don’t be ridiculous, Peeta. I’m not going to kill you.”

I chuckle and, feeling bold, reach out to stroke the end of her braid. Her hair is as silky as I could have imagined, not at all coarse like mine, but fine and soft. She watches me as I caress her hair, her chest rising and falling in short, restless pants, a slight pink flush creeping up her neck.

In the end, it doesn’t matter if my feelings are overwhelming. They’re there, so I tell her. And, since I know we only have a few short minutes, there’s no obligation on her part to return them. “I don’t know if I’ve ever said it, plainly and simply, but I love you. It seemed like now was as good a time as any to tell you that... Don’t think I’m going to have many more chances.”

Her mouth falls open in surprise, and I see her struggle to form the right words in reply. Her mouth moves uselessly, forming vowels and consonants that never quite make their way to her tongue.

I hold my hand out, indicating that no reply is necessary. “It’s okay, Katniss.” And I mean it. “I’m just telling you because you need to know that if I lost you, my life wouldn’t amount to anything. Maybe I’d get up every day, go through the motions, but the thing that has made my life worth living all along would be gone. I’ve loved you for so long I can’t imagine what a life without you would be like, and honestly the thought of that terrifies me.”

“I know,” she says, her voice breaking from some unknowable emotion. “I don’t know what happens when all this is over.”

Shrugging, I try to look hopeful for her, knowing that I’m failing. “Maybe it will be okay,” I try to assure her. “Even if we don’t have each other.”

She scoffs. “You don’t believe that.”

“No,” I agree ruefully. “Not for a minute. But what choice do we have?” I’ve never felt more hopeless in my life.

Then I remember the berries.

“Katniss, do you think if I die in my sleep I’ll wake up? I mean, I’ve heard that’s what happens.”

She chews her lip thoughtfully and tries not to look too skeptical. “I don’t know.” She glances to her bow. “I’m still not going to kill you, though.”

I give her a small smile, wanting nothing more than to hold her but somehow finding the strength to refrain. Noticing that the golden Cornucopia has disappeared, I know that we don’t have much time.

But we don’t need it.

“The nightlock,” I whisper pointedly, as if the Gamemakers might hear us and send in the mutts to tear us apart before we have the chance to act.

She raises her eyebrows as comprehension dawns on her. Stooping down, she unzips her bag and retrieves the handful of dark purple berries from inside its depths. They stain her fingers as she holds them in her fist.

“Do you trust me?” I ask her, reaching out for them.

She nods, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

“It’s worth a shot, right?” I say, my expression matching hers.

Her eyes sparkle when she replies. “We’ve got one shot, Peeta. Let’s make it count.” She pours half the berries into my outstretched hand and clutches my wrist with her other.

I move closer to her so that our bodies touch. “On the count of three,” I murmur, and she nods in understanding. Leaning down, I kiss her gently, hoping that the next time I see her we’ll be in District 13 and that, even if she doesn’t remember me, I’ll remember something of her and how we loved each other enough to try to save us.

“One,” I say, stealing a kiss from her.

She smiles at me, and it illuminates her entire face. When she smiles she is as radiant as the sun.

“Two.” This time she reaches up on her tiptoes and plants a kiss on me, trailing it to the corner of my mouth and along my jaw.

“Three,” I say, brushing my lips one last time to hers before we lift the berries to our mouth and swallow. They’re tart like underripe blackberries. Nothing special.

Nothing like her eyes.

Her eyes are the last thing I see.

*********************

When my eyes adjust to the darkness, I can make out glimpses of the stormy night sky through the cracks in the limestone. Rain seeps in, landing in fat drops on the plastic tarp propped above us. The ground is hard and uneven beneath me, and after a night spent lying on its unrelenting surface, my body protests at the mere thought of moving.

So I lie still instead, holding Katniss. She’s almost in the fetal position, tucked into my side, her head resting in the crook of my arm, her arm wrapped tightly around my waist. The way she holds me is new, and my body comes alive at her touch and the thought that she trusts me enough to sleep here, like this, with me. Motionless, I lie here burning for her until I’m nothing but cinder and ash.

In her sleep, she exhales heavily, the sound so pronounced it’s less a snore than a murmur. She looks so peaceful, so pure and untroubled, I could watch her sleep like this for hours, just enjoying her respite. It might be, in fact, how I choose to spend the rest of our time together in this memory.

I stroke the gentle lines of her cheek, fuller now than what I remember from when we were children. Better fed and healthy, I think, and it makes me immeasurably thankful that she’s resourceful and strong. Her dark eyelashes, long and tangled, flutter against her cheek as she dreams. I affectionately run my thumb across the tip of her nose and up the bridge to where a small cluster of freckles splash across its surface.

I can’t remember a time when I thought she was more beautiful. Even covered in the grime of the arena, her forehead bloodied from whatever horror she encountered at the Cornucopia–for my benefit–with her hair disheveled around her face, in my arms she is the most bewitching thing I have ever seen.

“Katniss?” I murmur, needing to hear her voice for a moment. “Katniss, can you hear me?”

Her gray eyes flicker open, blinking twice to dispel the traces of confusion left by her unconsciousness. Groggily, her voice thick with sleep, she says my name. The sum of this–her eyes, her voice, my name, the warmth of her body–are too much, and I feel my heart constrict painfully in my chest.

“Hey,” I reply. “Good to see your eyes again.”

She smiles at my words and looks sweetly into my eyes, not voicing the sentiment but sharing it nonetheless. “How long have I been out?”

I shrug. “Not sure. I just woke up, and we’re here.”

She sits up and gingerly touches her forehead, as if remembering something. She closes her eyes as it comes to her. “It didn’t work,” she groans.

“No,” I say, keeping my voice neutral to mask my disappointment. “It didn’t work.”

I hadn’t really expected it to, hadn’t held out much hope. At least I’m here with her now, though. It’s really a piece of luck, in a way, being able to live one of your favorite memories twice.

She covers her face, her shoulders slumping in defeat, but the last thing I want right now is to spend our last few memories together talking about all the ways we’ve failed each other.

“Hey,” I poke her.

She looks at me through her fingers, her voice muffled and cautious. “What?”

“Remember finding me by the river and cleaning me off?” I waggle my eyebrows at her. “You never told me if you liked what you saw.”

She closes her eyes and gives another groan for my benefit.

“That good, huh?” I say laughing. I reach out and pry her hands from her face, holding them tightly in both of mine. Her eyes crawl from the floor of the cave up to my face, slowly as if to commit all of me to her memory. I’m serious when I speak next. “I want to thank you for that. You found me. Saved me.”

“Oh, Peeta,” she moans, collapsing forward onto my shoulder, leaning her temple on me to keep pressure off her forehead. My arms wrap around her, holding her steadily to me. “You saved me,” she whispers. “With the bread.”

“Shh,” I hush her. “Don’t talk about that, not yet. Soon. But not yet.”

“Why not?” Her voice barely reaches me, nearly drowned out by the babble of the rain.

“I don’t want them to take it yet,” I say. I also can’t bear to face it yet, but I don’t tell her that. What purpose would that serve?

We sit locked in each other’s arms for as long as we dare, listening to the thundering rain as it lashes violently outside our sanctuary. She sounds like a scared child when she speaks next. “I want to go home, Peeta,” she confesses.

“You will. I promise.” I lift her head up off my shoulder to meet her gaze.

Now is when I kiss her for the last time, and we both know it.

We lean together, meeting each other in the middle, her hands wrapping themselves in my hair and my hands wrapping themselves around her waist to draw each other in. I nuzzle my nose against the soft skin of her face, and she closes her eyes and whimpers.

"Peeta, I–” she whispers, but before she can continue, I capture her bottom lip between mine, gently pulling it into my mouth and nibbling it. She pulls me closer and parts her lips for me, allowing my tongue to plunder her mouth greedily.

Our kiss is not sweet or tender. No, the time has come and gone for that. Instead it is hungry and desperate. It is the doomed effort of two people facing the end of the world together, who would rather throw themselves headlong into oblivion than wait for death to find them.

The weight of all the kisses we’ll never share crushes us, bruises our lips. The finality rips our breath away. And the knowledge that this is all we’ll ever have buries us.

I’ll never forget her soft lips, the way she sighs into my mouth when our skin touches. They can take the memory of it, but they can never steal its feeling.

I can’t hear the rain anymore, and that’s how I know it’s time. I pull away just enough to feel her lips brush against mine as she speaks.

“I want to go home… with you,” she pleads, crying. “But I know I’m going to spend the rest of my life in this arena trying to think my way out.” She caresses my face, studying every line, still trying to fight what is happening to us, even now. I love her for that. I love her for so much.

“Tell you what,” I say, trying to comfort her. “You go back to sleep and dream of home. And we’ll be there for real before you know it.”

She sniffles, wiping her tears away in frustration, but she doesn’t hesitate to lie down again in my arms. “I’m going to miss this,” she tells me. “I think I took it all for granted.”

“Me too,” I say, even though I don’t believe for a second either of us took this for granted.

“Will you find me like I found you?” she asks me. “Wherever I am? Will you find me, even if you don’t see me?”

There are no words left to speak, so I plant a kiss on her forehead in reply. I just want to hold her in my arms this last time, to feel the shape of her body molded to mine. She falls silent, maybe because she is gone.

I try not to move, and, in the cavernous darkness, I pretend that this is how we die.

*********************

The crowds on the street far below are raucous. Drunken people shamble along the glittering sidewalk, screaming our names, laughing and cheering and slapping each other on the backs. As they stumble into the street, elegantly appointed cars honk their horns, aggressively piercing the night with their sharp tones.

They’re throwing a party for the imminent death of twenty-three children, and if I have my wish, I will be one of that number. For her.

The tiles of the rooftop are warm beneath my bare feet, still heated from the day’s blistering sunshine. The breeze, even this high up, is summerlike and sweet. As incongruous as it might seem, I’m looking forward to this memory. To have the chance to talk to her, alone, before the nightmare of the Games.

Over the din, I don’t hear her approach until she speaks. “You should be getting some sleep,” she says in her husky voice, still so unfamiliar and thrilling to hear directed at me.

I smirk, loving how she is worried about whether I will feel rested up to die. “I didn’t want to miss the party. It’s for us, after all.” Our time is running too short to waste it sleeping, but I don’t point this out to her.

She stands next to me, close enough that I can feel the heat radiating from her body, and she leans over the railing to grimace down at the grotesque spectacle below.

“Couldn’t sleep either?” I ask her, wanting to chuckle but not knowing if she’ll appreciate the gallows humor.

“No,” she answers truthfully. “All I can do is wonder about tomorrow. Which is pointless, of course.” She raps the palms of her hands nervously on the railing. “There’s no point worrying about losing something you’ll never know you _almost_ had, right?”

We smirk together silently at the question. “You’re right. It doesn’t matter. Or at least it shouldn’t. But it does.”

She sighs. “Look, Peeta. I know you’re worried about them changing you, turning you into a monster, and I’ve been thinking about that.”

I arch an eyebrow and turn my head to face her, mirroring her posture as I lean over the railing. “Oh yeah?”

She nods and bites her lip. “Yeah. And I think there’s no way someone can turn you into something you’re not, not really.” She fixes her eyes on me, so dark in the night they almost look black. She’s deadly serious as she speaks. “You’re the least monstrous of all of us.”

I make a mournful sound that’s meant to sound like a laugh but doesn’t come close. It sounds more like a choked sob. “But I feel like such a monster… this reprehensible coward who would rather run from the pain than face the truth of who I am and what I’ve done. If they hadn’t turned me into a monster, I never would have let them take you from me, regardless of whether or not you loved me or wanted me.”

She touches my arm, and the gesture surprises me. It scalds me, searing my skin at the point of contact. “Did you ever think that maybe you deserve a fresh start?”

“Is this what it is? Because it feels more like dying,” I tell her, unable to rend my eyes from hers. In my peripheral vision, I can see the lights of the city go out block by block, methodical and relentless in the march toward us.

“I guess it is, in a way. But who knows what will rise from the ashes,” she replies, lightly shrugging.

I can’t help but crack a smile at that. “That sounds very hopeful coming from you, of all people.”

She grins back. “But am I _me_?” She laughs and waves her hand dismissively, uninterested in the existential. “Well, maybe so. But if that’s the case, it’s because someone once taught me how to hope. So maybe I’m just paying back the debt.”

The screams and laughter from the street die out voice by voice until the silence deafens us. There’s something else we need to talk about, something I’ve been dying to know.

I eye her, wanting to ask the thing that’s been weighing on my mind. “Katniss?”

She meets my gaze, blushing at my tone, and banters, “Peeta?”

“What do you think would have happened to us without the Games? Think I would have stood a chance?”

She squeezes my arm and then lets me go, turning back to the stairs and walking away. She answers as she goes, “Maybe now you’ll get to find out. At any rate, I’m planning to spend the last hours of my life in District 12.”

I pivot on my heels to watch her go. She pauses at the top of the stairs and looks back at me. “Maybe you will, too.”

She walks through the doorway and descends the stairs, disappearing.

*********************

Effie Trinket stands on the terrace of the Justice Building, her garish pink hair and bizarre green pantsuit providing the only splash of color against an otherwise bleak backdrop. Everything is stark and desaturated, everything except for Katniss. She’s wearing a pale blue dress that I’ve never seen before. The fabric drapes loosely around her slender frame and looks so soft and clean I want to bury my face in it. It doesn’t matter that I’m far away, in the middle of a crowd. I want to reach out and touch it, to let the fabric slip between my fingers.

She’s fighting back tears and trying to look brave for the cameras. Her chin quivers, but she holds her shoulders high and rigid. Her eyes stay locked on some distant, invisible point, far on the horizon, as if she could escape there somehow if she only imagined it.

She’s holding on by a thread, and I need to get to her.

Over the loudspeaker, Effie’s voice sounds hollow and tinny, and when she presses her magenta lips too closely to the metal of the microphone, a squeal of feedback tears through the town square, making us jump and squirm anxiously. “It’s time to choose our boy tribute!” she chirps cheerfully, and even though I already know what she’s going to say, my heart hammers in my chest furiously. _Hurry up_ , I think. _Just say it_.

She trots to the oversized bowl filled with white slips and plucks the first one her hand touches. I’m already pushing through the crowd, making my way to the stage when she calls out my name. “Peeta Mellark,” she enunciates in her affected Capitol accent, and even though it doesn’t sound like my name, I’m hurrying up the steps, walking toward Katniss. When she hears my name, her face pales. I hadn’t noticed that before, and maybe I’m only inventing it now in my mind, but she looks devastated to hear me reaped. It makes me want to kiss her. My own family wouldn’t blanch at the news, but this girl who barely knew me mourned for me, even then.

We don’t have much time left, I know, and what little time we do have I want to spend with her.

I want to wrap my arms around her, turning her back to the crowd so they can’t see the tears threatening to spill onto her cheeks. Pressing her head to my chest, I’d promise to keep her safe. I'd swear my life on it. But I can’t do that because I _didn’t_ do that, and I can’t manufacture something out of nothing. Anger threatens to overwhelm me at the thought that _they_ can tamper with my memories, creating false ones to torment me, but I can’t alter my own memories to comfort myself as this part of me dies.

Effie stands between us, but out of the corner of my eye, I can see Katniss watching me, reading my face for some response. This time I don’t have to hide how stunned I feel, I don’t have to bite back the bile in my throat.

This time I have the courage to look at her, so I do. I turn my head to gaze at her, to memorize every feature of her face before it’s gone forever. She’s staring at me too, taking in the full sight of me.

“Peeta,” she murmurs. My breath hitches at the sound. I never want to forget how my name falls from her lips or how her mouth looks as she forms the letters. The sound is lyrical, melodic, like some long-forgotten tune I used to know in my childhood. I want to carry it with me to my grave, wherever, whenever I find my way there. She needs to be with me then, somehow, even if it is only as that.

“Katniss,” I reply, and it’s the only thing I can say through the lump in my throat.

“This is the first time we touched,” she tells me, as if I’d already forgotten. As if I ever could forget.

“I know,” I croak, my heart breaking in my chest as I realize I'm going to lose this, too. Something as simple as the feel of her skin on mine, torn from me.

Effie yammers away, but neither of us listens to her. Instead, we turn to face each other, unbidden and unasked, unnoticed by the crowd. She offers her small hand to me, and I take it, engulfing it in both of mine, attempting to give it a reassuring squeeze. Her skin is so soft on mine, so warm and comforting. At every place our hands touch, a current courses through me, exactly like it did when I was reaped.

She smiles at me encouragingly as the crowd fades away, their hushed whispers swallowed in the silence.

We look out into the empty square, framed by the ramshackle, collapsing buildings of our town, and take in the sight of our own faces on the jumbo screens. I watch as her image blurs and disappears, mine following in rapid succession. I turn to her in a panic, afraid that even though I can feel her fingers, when I look at her, she’ll be gone.

“You’re going to have to let me go,” she says.

“I can’t,” I beg her hoarsely, as if she could stop any of this.

I frantically notice Effie Trinket vanish into whatever dark void they’ve created for these memories they’re stealing. The letters engraved onto the stone edifice of the Justice Building slide away, leaving behind a smooth, unmarked surface. We could be anywhere now. My pulse threatens to drown me, it's so overpowering in this silence.

It’s just the two of us, standing alone, on an empty terrace. We’re the last two things in this memory, and I know she’ll be next to go. My thumb strokes the knuckles of her hand, tracing the lines and committing them to my memory for as long as they’ll let me have it.

*********************

The rain pours down in steady sheets, pooling into thick, muddy puddles on the frozen ground and then running in filthy streams down the side of the street. The air is dark with gloom, the low-hanging clouds so ominously black, it seems like the sun was the only one with the good sense not to rise today. A day like today feels like winter’s last stand, one final attack on your frigid bones. It desolates all hope, all joy, leaving you feeling as barren as the land.

I hover in front of the bakery ovens, thankful for their warmth, despite the fact that the weather has soured my mother’s mood more than usual, making everything more difficult than it needs to be. She’s been barking at us all afternoon, rubbing her back and complaining about her arthritis. Whenever I see someone from town shambling by the large glass windows, soaked to the bone and shivering, it seems like we have so little to complain about.

The back door is cracked, like usual, to let in fresh air and to cool off the heated backroom. My mother takes a pass by the door, stopping when she hears rustling in the bins behind the building. Curiously, I listen to the commotion as my mother walks outside and begins to yell at someone, launching the same invective their way as she does to me: trash, filth, piece of shit.

I risk having all these things yelled at me next by peeking around my mother’s shoulder.

Because, as much as this memory hurts, I need to see _her_.

My mother tells Katniss to move along, threatening to call the Peacekeepers, and so she staggers away, toward the pigpen, hunched in defeat. I see her collapse beneath our old apple tree, her bony shoulders heaving as she sobs.

“What are you doing, stupid boy?” my mother snaps as she shoves past me, smacking me across the head. She’s clearly aggrieved to have a starving girl on her back lawn... how terribly inconvenient, I think bitterly, to watch someone die because you chose not to help.

We contemplate each other for several moments from our respective places: Katniss from under the tree, me from the toasty backroom of the bakery. She’s so soaked, she’s not even shivering anymore. Her lips are a pale blue, her cheeks sunken in little hollows, and she makes no effort to move, as if whatever fire she had been nursing inside herself had been finally extinguished by my mother’s words.

I turn my back on her, but only for a moment. Walking up to the ovens, I furtively glance inside, spotting two loaves of hearty nut bread that are ready to be removed. I grab the wooden peel hanging on the wall next to the ovens and scoop the loaves onto it, and then, just as they are almost clear of the oven, I drop the loaves into the fire, making an exaggerated sound of surprise as they fall.

My feigned dismay works, my mother rushing over to observe the scorching bread. Quickly, before they’re inedible, I manage to salvage the loaves by pushing them away from the fire. I scoop them back onto the peel and walk them over to the cooling rack, depositing them on the first bare shelf I see.

The crusts are charred black, which makes them unsaleable, but I know the bread is still good.

“You ruin everything!” my mother screams at me, smacking me cleanly across the face three times. On the third pass, she backhands me with her left hand, her wedding ring catching on my cheekbone.

I wince and bite back my cry so that she doesn’t start punching me next. My eyes smart from the pain, but I refuse to give her any reaction aside from cowering timidly. I need her to hurry up with it because I have to get to Katniss.

“I–I’m sorry, mother,” I stammer, remembering every word by heart. “It was… an accident.”

She pinches my arm so hard I want to scream, but I bite back my wail and press on, “Maybe I could feed it… to the pigs… so at least it’s not wasted?”

Her hand finally withdraws, but she leans in closely and screams, her spittle flying in my face as she yells. “Feed it to the pig, you stupid creature! Why not? No one decent will buy burned bread!” She smacks me once more across the head and storms away, and I turn around as quickly as I can, hastily grabbing the loaves and walking outside into the yard.

I splash through the muck, making a beeline for the pigpen, and chance a look over my shoulder to make sure my mother isn’t watching. I freeze when I reach the pigs, my thin cotton shirt and apron already soaked through from the rain, my skin pebbled from the wind and frigid water. Droplets fall from the strands of my hair, into my eyes and down my face, as if I were crying.

“This is it,” I say to her as she lifts her head and meets my gaze. “This is all we have left.” My voice shakes as I shiver, grasping a loaf of bread in each hand. Their heat seeps into my hands, warming my fingers, making the rest of me feel colder in comparison. I wish I could be holding her instead.

She clutches her knees tightly to her chest and shudders, but she doesn’t say a word.

“I should have gone to you, Katniss. I should have been brave and just handed you the bread instead of throwing it. I should have made this memory more than it is.”

She rises unsteadily to her feet, leaning against the tree for balance. When she speaks, her voice is hoarse from crying. “You were so brave, Peeta. I don’t know anyone braver.”

It’s just a memory. It doesn’t change anything. But this time I go to her.

The bakery crashes down behind me, bursting outward plank by plank, falling into a nondescript pile of rubble. Within seconds everything, even the crooked apple tree, disappears into the gloom.

All that’s left is us, two soaked children standing in front of each other, and I don’t know whether I’m trembling from the cold or from my nerves. “What do we do now?” I ask. I hold the bread out to her, a useless gift, but she takes it anyway and presses it securely to her chest with one arm. She buries her face in it for a moment, deeply inhaling the smell, and gives me a grateful smile.

“I don’t know. I guess we try to forget,” she replies, tracing the red welt on my cheek with her thumb.

Quickly, before she’s gone, I wrap my arms around her, pressing my face to her neck and burying it in the loose, wet strands of her hair. “I don’t want to forget,” I cry, regretting that it has stopped raining because I know that this is finally the end.

She whispers in my ear, her breath hot and hurried, “The colors, Peeta. They can’t make you forget a color. Try to remember my favorite color is green... it’s not much, but maybe it’s something to hold onto.” Her small fingers dig into my back, squeezing me once, and that’s when I lose her.

“I’ll think of you whenever I see it,” I promise with a broken voice. It is a vow I speak to myself and then forget.

*********************

 _This is where forever starts and ends_.

It was the first time I saw her. It was also the day that I knew I loved her.

We were five.

My hand clutches my father’s nervously as he and I walk together up the stone steps of the school. I’m usually chatty, especially when I’m just around my dad, but today I’m so scared about whether the kids will like me or whether I’ll make any friends at all that I haven’t said a word.

My dad must sense this because, as we wait in the lineup, he gives my hand a squeeze and hitches his thumb over his shoulder, pointing across the schoolyard to a girl wearing a red plaid dress. Her long, dark hair is in two braids, and she walks alone, headed toward the end of the line.

“See that little girl?” he asks me.

I lock my eyes on her curiously, taking in the sight of her dark olive skin and gray eyes, so unlike anyone else I know, and I nod. “Uh-huh.” I see her.

He continues in a conspiratorial tone. “I wanted to marry her mother, but she ran off with a coal miner.”

I can feel my eyes bug out of my head. “A coal miner? Why would she want a coal miner when she could have had _you_?” I’ve seen the coal miners, all grimy and covered in soot. They scare me. They’re so serious and stern, nothing like my dad, who likes to talk to everybody and sneaks cookies to all the kids in town.

My dad ruffles my hair, and I can’t help but think he looks a little sad when he says, “Because when he sings… even the birds stop to listen.”

I think about his words all day, how a person’s voice could be so lovely and strong that the birds listen to it. I decide I don’t believe him. Nobody can sing like that.

But later, in music assembly, the teacher asks who knows the valley song, and the girl in the red plaid dress and two braids launches her hand into the air.

“Oh, I do! I do!” she exclaims, waving her hand anxiously, hoping to be called upon.

The teacher beams at her and calls the girl, whose name is Katniss, to the front of the room. She places a stool down and lifts Katniss onto it.

Katniss clears her throat and starts to sing, not even waiting for musical accompaniment. Her voice carries throughout the room, strong and clear and sweet.

I gaze out the window and notice the mockingjays sitting in the elm tree. One of them flies up to the casement and sits on the windowsill, looking in, tilting its head as it listens.

Every bird outside the window falls silent when Katniss sings.

I can’t hear their birdsong anymore, and one by one they fly away or disappear. Her voice, so sweet and beautiful, fades away, too.

Then she is gone.

*********************

The snow has melted by the time I talk to her again, but it’s not for lack of trying. I’d made my way out my front door half a dozen times with the sole intention of seeing her. I’d even gone as far as the front stoop of her house once before I thought better of it and turned around, hustling as fast as I could back home, praying that she didn’t notice me. On that occasion, Haymitch had been drinking on his front porch, watching his flock of geese roam around the front lawn. As I shamefully climbed my front steps, scrubbing my hands over my scarlet-red face, he lifted his hip flask to me and, I think, gave me a wink.

Mortifying.

The problem is that I don’t know what I’d say to Katniss if I did see her. The mere thought of it makes me break out into a nervous sweat, clammy palms and all. But there’s something about her I haven’t been able to shake, and for that reason alone I want–I _need_ –to get to know her.

I can’t remember _ever_ feeling this way about someone before.

I’m pulling a batch of bran muffins out of the oven when I hear the distinctive sound of her laughter wafting in through the open window. Like the first time I heard it, weeks ago, it’s as if she has knocked the wind out of me. The pan almost falls from my hands, but I steady myself and spring into action liked I’d planned on each of my seven other failed attempts.

Grabbing the basket near the door, I purposefully stride out of the house before I second guess myself. If I take time to consider my options, I know I’ll end up baking a quiche or something and stewing in self-loathing the rest of the afternoon.

She’s standing in front of her house with her bow in hand and game bag slung over her shoulder, the head of a wild turkey poking out of the top. The tall, lanky guy from the village is animatedly explaining something to her. As I approach, I can hear him more clearly as he relays some anecdote about a guy named Thom and a half-feral rooster with particularly sharp spurs.

“Yeah,” he says, “that’s what I told him… you could take care of it for him, end of story.”

From their body language, I can tell they’re comfortable with each other, _friendly_ , and for a split second, I find myself resenting the ease with which he can talk to her.

Until she turns her head and sees me, that is.

She looks pleasantly amused by her companion’s story, but when she sees me, her face breaks into a shy grin, a pink flush painting her cheeks, matching the color on mine.

“Hey, Peeta,” she says, turning from her companion to face me as I walk up to her.

I hook the basket on my arm and jam my hands in my pockets so that she can’t see them shaking. “Hey, Katniss,” I reply, stupidly beaming at her.

She’s dressed for utility, wearing a worn leather jacket several sizes too big for her, heavy wool pants, and a pair of extremely muddy boots. Strands of hair hang loosely around her face and neck wherever they’ve broken free from her braid.

I know then, for certain, that I’ve never seen anything so beautiful in my life.

We’re gawking at each other silently for several moments when the guy standing next to her clears his throat. I tear my eyes away from Katniss and notice she does the same, both of us seeming to remember that we’re not alone.

“Uh, hey,” he says, an uncomfortable edge to his voice. “You’re Peeta Mellark, right?”

I smile apologetically. “The one and only... thankfully,” I reply, giving a self-deprecating laugh.

He nods, looking at Katniss and then back at me, smiling ruefully. “Yeah, the one and only.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, genuinely contrite, my brain unable to place his face. “I don’t seem to remember ever meeting you before.”

“That’s right, that’s right,” he says, nodding firmly, then extending his hand to me. “Gale Hawthorne.”

Taking his hand, I shake it firmly, grateful when he shakes mine back and doesn’t seem to be interested in having a contest with me over who has better grip strength. “Nice to meet you,” I tell him, wanting to mean it.

He smirks and gives my back a half-hearted pat. “Ah, yeah. Nice to meet you too, buddy.”

I point between Gale and Katniss. “Are you two cousins or...?” I let my question trail off, leaving it up to them. It’s bold maybe, but I figure I might as well not tiptoe around the subject. If they’re together, I’d rather have my hopes stomped into dust sooner rather than later.

Katniss gives a brief laugh and shrugs. “I mean, we _could_ be, technically. But no… we’re just friends. Gale’s my hunting partner.”

I study Gale’s face at her words, but if he has feelings for Katniss, he doesn’t betray them. We stand around awkwardly after her reply, just milling and waiting for someone to say something, but Gale finally speaks up. “Well,” he says, looking at Katniss and then me, “I should go.”

When I glance at Katniss, I’m surprised to find that she’s looking at me and not him. “See you later,” she tells Gale, sounding breathless. She never once breaks her gaze from mine as he turns and walks away.

“Later,” he calls over his shoulder, and then he is gone.

Finally, it’s just the two of us. It seems like I’ve waited my whole life for this moment, the chance for it to be like this. Not sure what to say, or where to start, I rub the back of my neck. Suddenly remembering that I’m carrying a basket, I thrust it toward her. “Here,” I offer. “I brought you some stuff I baked.”

It’s not much, just some bread and pastries, but it’s what I have to give: my humble token of not-quite-friendship.

She peeks into the basket and gives one of her small little smiles that I’ve already become addicted to seeing.

“I- ah- figured that since we’re neighbors, we might as well get to know each other,” I explain lamely. Worried that she’ll see straight through me with those piercing gray eyes, I backpedal. Gesturing to the deserted houses of the Victor’s Village, I make a joke of it. “So far everyone seems to be getting along really well. They seem so wonderful, don’t they?”

She rolls her eyes and laughs wryly, a full-bodied, throaty sound that makes my stomach leap into my throat. I think I’d like to make her laugh like that every day, to see her face light up and warm me.

The front door creaks open behind Katniss, a slight, blonde-haired girl poking her head out. “Peeta, is that you?” she asks, barreling out of the house and onto the stoop when she sees me. As if she is happy to see me. Her fingers twitch anxiously at her side like she’s eager to say something.

I swipe at my brow, trying to mask my confusion. Maybe she knows who I am because I’m a Victor, or maybe she just knows because there are so few of us left in District 12, but I can’t account for why she would greet me like an old friend. “Hey,” I reply, trying to figure out how I would know her. Maybe she used to come into the bakery. It’s the only explanation that comes to mind.

“I’m Prim,” she informs me. “Katniss’ little sister. I’m so glad to finally meet you.” She shoots me a sweet smile and adds, “She only mentions you _all the time_.”

My mouth falls open at this, because surely Prim is teasing me. Why would Katniss mention me all the time, having only spoken to me once? I glance down at Katniss, but her eyes root themselves to the ground, the blush that had covered her cheeks spreading like a wildfire across her neck. For a second, I allow myself to hope that she hasn’t been oblivious to me, either, that she’s been paying attention, too.

Prim’s voice interrupts my reverie. “Katniss, did you invite him to dinner yet?”

Katniss crosses her arms against her chest and furiously shakes her head, still refusing to meet my eyes.

Prim rolls her eyes, and when she does, I can see for the first time how two girls so unlike in appearance might actually be related. “Well, then let _me_. Peeta, would you like to join us for dinner tonight?”

There is almost nothing in this world that I would like more. Grinning from ear to ear, I accept the offer. “I’d love that. Want me to bring dessert?” The thought of having dinner with Katniss, of sharing a simple, routine moment with her family, makes me so impossibly happy.

I’ve felt unloved and orphaned for as long as I can remember.

At my words, Katniss’ eyes slowly rise from the ground, crawling their way to my face. When she sees my joyful expression, which I can’t hide to save my life, she covers her own smile with her hand. As she holds it there, pressing her fingers to her lips, I notice it’s trembling. I want to take her hand and hold it, caress it, run my thumb along her knuckles like I did the first time we met, but I jam my hands in my pockets instead, burrowing down a little into my coat.

“Well,” I say, feeling boyish and agonizingly bashful. “Do you have a little bit of time maybe to go on a walk with me?”

“All the time in the world,” she answers without pausing to think.

Behind us, Prim smiles. “Here, hand me your bag, Katniss,” she offers, coming forward to relieve her sister of the heavy game bag. “Want me to take that, too?” she asks, pointing to the basket.

“No,” Katniss replies, clutching it tighter to her chest in response. She looks at me hopefully. “I know just the place we can go. We’ll make a picnic of it.”

Our walk through the town is peaceful and uninterrupted. All around us the people who have returned to District 12 are busy reassembling our lives: they work together, erecting sturdy beams and supports for buildings that seem to be appearing anew, right before our eyes, every day. In their most careful hand, they trace letters that read “apothecary,” “butcher,” and “carpenter.” They plant saplings and shrubs, painting in all the details of our lives that had been erased by the war.

We pass through the meadow and into the woods, no longer barred entry from the electric fence. After walking together for several miles, chatting along the way about anything inconsequential that we can think of, she takes me to a rock ledge overlooking a lush green valley. When we finally sit together, settling into the worn grooves of the rock face, she tells me, “This is one of my favorite places.”

Even this early in the season, the valley is lush and cloaked in pine. Far below, I can hear the babble of a river rushing, carrying the snow melt along to some distant sea we’ll never know. I inhale the fresh air, tucking my knees against my chest to brace myself against the fragile spring breeze.

“I can see why,” I say, watching her as she turns her head to face me. She rests her arms on her knees, finally at ease with herself in this place. There’s one of those smiles again, I think, admiringly.

“Why’s that?” she asks, playfully quizzing me.

I shrug, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. I fall into her gray eyes, so cool and comforting, and I tell her, “Because of all the green.”

She reaches out, then, and silently takes my hand.

I don’t know why exactly, but sitting here with her, like this, makes me feel like I’m exactly where I need to be. Like I could die happy.

We sit together long enough to watch the sun set below the horizon of the surrounding hills, neither of us in a rush to go anywhere, just enjoying the beauty of every moment as it adds to the canvas of our lives. Just as the sun disappears, Katniss breaks the spell that has fallen upon us, speaking quietly into the dusk, “Orange... soft, like the sunset.”

It’s my favorite color, and for some reason it doesn’t surprise me that she knows that.

By the time we’ve made it back to the Victor’s Village, it’s already well after dark. The nighttime shadows have swallowed the entire town, and only the warm orange glow radiating from inside Katniss’ house dispels them.

When we reach her front stoop, I give a cursory glance at my clothing and explain, “I should probably get changed for dinner.” I smile excitedly at the thought of spending the entire evening with her after our perfect afternoon, and I know I’m going to throw on the first clean thing I can find to hurry back to her.

Shyly, she places the basket on the ground and leans up on her toes, wrapping her hands around my shoulders and pulling me toward her into a hug. In her arms I feel safe and protected, and it makes me wonder if she feels that way, too. Like I’ve found my way home.

“I’ll see you soon,” I murmur into her hair.

She sighs and pulls me closer, running her fingers through my hair as she whispers in reply, “See you soon.”


End file.
